short scale bass strings

i need help. i play dan armstrong basses and i also have a hofner 500/1 beatle bass. anyone know where i can find affordable shortscale strings both roundwound and flatwounds. any help would be appreciated. no where in atlanta have i been able to find them so........HELP.

cool thanks for the info. i have a 1969 original and one of the 1998 reissues [smoked plexi] and a DAN ARMSTRONG LONDON BASS. with the sliding pu. i love those basses. i cant imagine playing anything else.....except the hofner..... thanks again.

Yah, I get my Rotos for my Turser Beatle from there. In my case, it's the Roto flats, medium because the shorts are just a little 'too' short.

Sometimes I wish I still had that Lucy though; I loved it for recording - it just had this...'even' sound. The pickup was really powerful too as I remember. Quiet, powerful - and...one of the first 24 fret guitars or basses at the time.

And...no deadspots really, because the Lucite is so even. And when I'd rap it with my knuckles - like you do to 'hear' the resonance of an instrument, it felt and sounded almost 'warm.' Not what you'd expect of plastic. I think it's the perfect material for a solidbody guitar or bass, though many others would disagree.

how does the turser compare to a hofner? they look like they are well made basses but i have never played one. my hofner is my newest edition. it takes a while getting used to after playing the da for the past 18 years. hard to "dig in". i'm afraid i'll break it. the pu on the da are really powerful. i like the trble turned all the way up. really cuts through...especially with an svt and a 4x10. just out of curiosity, why did you get rid of your lucy?

Anyhow, I've never played a real Hofner so I don't know what the actual difference is. I actually started off on a Sears Beatle bass which was even less like a Hofner, but I loved the heck out of that one.

The Lucy came along as 'used' and since I was into the Stones at that point - '74 or so - I just had to have it. It was my first 'professional' bass. I had to switch it around because I'm a lefty, but I was already used to the knobs being right under my forearm so that was cool. But then I got a lefty Rick 4001 (stolen a couple years back), and the Lucy just sat around. I used it for dropped D tuning in clubs (Love Is A Battlefield), but that was about it. Then a guitarist I used to jam with wanted to pick up bass so we did a temporary trade - the Lucy for his 70s Strat - and then we wound up making the switch permanent. I sold the Strat (it was a righty and I could never get around the shallower cutout at the high frets) and he kept the Lucy. I don't know where it is now, but...I still might get another one day, just for old time's sake.

I think the real reason I got the Lucy - aside from Bill playing one - was that it had 'even' cutouts and that weird swiveling bridge that made it a snap to switch over to lefty. I remember it came with flatwounds of some sort and those small Grover type guitar tuners and I eventually - when I had it - changed the tuners to Schaller mini bass tuners and put a set of Roto rounds on it. Great sound. Nice feel. The short scales just make you want to play different things on them, you know?

But the Turser's my fave now. It's really pretty solidly built and I had to do zero setup on it. A friend from the now-defunct Leftyguitar.com had warned me that the electronics might need a little solder reflow so when I noticed - after an hour of joyfully plunking away on the newly arrived Beatle, that it only had 'one' sound - I went in and reheated all the connections, and voi la! - the classic sounding instrument. Somewhere in that weird wiring harness one of the joints had been cold so there I was. Haven't really put it down since. It's a tad longer in scale - 31-32" instead of a straight 30" - but to me at least, it's the sound I'd been thinking of since I don't know when. That nice round, middle-ish, 'curved on the bottom and the top' float in the mix sort of sound.

I almost got the Brice Beatle from Rondo but at the time I was set to buy - about two years ago - Kurt was out of the lefties and he only had the black finished ones. Now he's got them again, but it was just 'time' to get a Beatle, and Turser was the one.

No regrets on that account.

I'd still like to try the Brice and even the Rogue (even though that same friend on that lefty board warned against the Rogues due to neck warpage - I haven't seen any complaints on the Harmony Central reviews though), just to see how well they're made. They're actually probably all made in the same factory somewhere, but it would be cool to have a couple others for contrast. All will get Roto Monels - except...maybe I'd try Pyramids or LaBellas just to see. The only thing with that, is...I think the Pyramids and LaBellas are either short scale or normal, 34" scale, and nothing in between as far as I know.

Rotos work fine though. When I put them on (the Turser came with some brand of rounds on it) that first time it was like - Yes, now THERE is the sound! I was just sitting there, playing, grinning like an idiot!

Nice strong, light little instrument. I've never played very hard though but still - it seems strongly made.

The Lucy though: To me at least, it's more solid and stable than most solid bodies. I know it probably doesn't matter, but if I were building a synth guitar, I'd want the body to be Lucite, just so the only resonance or hot or dead spots would be in the neck. I love that material; a little heavy maybe, but in my opinion, the perfect stuff for solid body instruments.

yea it's funny. i started out on a 1963 vox phantom....or the boat oar as i like to call it. i stared teching for rick richards and rick price from the georgia satellites and they both play dan armstrongs. i fell in love with the lucy and that was 18 years ago and i have never looked back. the neck on the 1969 i like better than the reissue but i never take the 1969 out of the house anymore. if anything ever happened to that bass i would be devistated. kent armstrong did a stellar job on the pu in fact i put one of his in the 69 when that pu. went bad. had to do some slight routing and replace the bridge as it does sit higher but other than that couldnt tell a diff.
the hofner was an impulse buy. i've always wanted one so i bought it. i like all the bottom end and the fact it weighs like 4 lbs.
i spoke with dan armstrong several years ago via telephone. i got his number from the fine folks at vintage guitar magazine and they had called him, told him i was a huge fan and would like to talk with him. we spoke for like 2 hours about guitars, music and the best place in the atlanta to get a steak. i asked him if he would mind autographing some pictures for me that i sent him and he did. really a nice guy. his son is incredible also. he has been helping me with the dan armstrong london bass i bought. one of only 2-3 fretless versions he knows of to exist. i know that dan armstrong only made 1 leftie lucy guitar and that was sent to paul mccartney. if i ever got to hang out with paul THAT would be the one i would want to see. i have a picture of him from a couple of years ago playing it so i'm sure he still has it. talk about rare. the only lefty AND it belongs to paul.

Yah, I've heard Sir Paul's quite the gear-addict. Can't blame him though. Sometimes when I see a lefty 'anything' I feel like getting it just because they never were around before, or rare or special order or 40% costlier because they were lefty. Nowadays they're pretty much all over the place.

But that fretless Lucy! I never heard of those; didn't think anyone was into fretless back then. Which guys played them - that would be late 60s through 70s bands, right?